Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

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Fatamorgana 'Mirage'

Introduction

Fatamorgana is an early work (1980) and is real musical fantasy. In the first movement, two folk-like melodies vie for attention. The basses represent the relentless heat of the desert while the more wistful lines of the altos reminisce and hallucinate. All the while the dreamy atmosphere is enhanced by the nonchalant commentary floating above in the soprano part. In the second movement the melody of the soprano solo is picked up and echoed by the other voices to the words ‘The sun runs around it’. The last few notes of this movement are thrown around the three soprano parts as again Plakidis creates a texture with free-floating soprano lines offsetting a chorale-like song in the lower voices. If there is something fairytale-like about the text then this could certainly be said of the musical setting. The magical ending to the lines ‘while a glassy-winged dragonfly will make for you a gentle cooling breeze’ has three sopranos singing the same melodic pattern in different rhythms. Plakidis is adept at creating sounds that appear free and improvised and yet are notated with economic ease.

Recordings

The Choir of Royal Holloway have proved themselves as inspirational performers of contemporary Baltic music through their previous recordings. This latest album features a major contemporary work based on Estonian folk hymns, suffused with dreamy ...» More

In the hot dust of the desert I gazed on a sudden landscape:— pale blue northern skies, a tiny moment from childhood days, a dear flaxen-haired Latvian child and gentle ancient and future scenes: brothers who love no longer drive each other away.

Come into my homestead into the green pasture,— I will set you a cane chair, with a puff-ball cushion; I will slake your thirst in goblets of honeyed dew; I will make a shade for you of green-gold leaves; for your rest, in the mosses I will lay you sheets of poppy petals, while a glassy-winged dragonfly will make for you a gentle cooling breeze.